Tenants Stop Paying Rent to Protest Insanitary Conditions, Owner Removes Doors and Windows in Retaliation

It’s been over a month since Nicole and Pascal Vermeulen, a middle-aged couple from Lignières, France, have had to sleep in fear of someone simply walking into their home at night. That’s because they don’t have a front door anymore, or windows for that matter, after the house owner removed them as punishment for not receiving the rent.

Three years ago, when the Vermeulen family found a 110 square-meter house for rent in the village of Lignières, for €500 a month, they thought they were getting a good deal, but things started going south soon after they moved in. The building’s septic tank got clogged years ago, which rendered the toilet and shower virtually unusable. The tenants have had to deal with human waste coming up through the toilet and the shower drain on more than one occasion, and the bathroom walls are constantly covered with mold. Also their garage always smells like a sewer. Despite their repeated pleas to the owner of the apartment to get the septic tank fixed, and the home being declared insanitary by the CAF (Direction of Family Allocations), the owner simply disregarded the problems.

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French Village Is Offering $2,250 to Whoever Can Decipher Its Centuries-Old Stone Message

Plougastel, a small village in France’s Brittany region, is offering a prize of €2,000 ($2,250) to whoever can decipher a 230-year-old inscription carved into a nearby rock-slab.

Discovered just a few years ago, the mysterious rock is located in a cove accessible only at low tide. It features 20 lines of writing in a “language” that so far no one has been able to crack, two years  – 1786 and 1787 – as well as carved images of a ship with sails and rudder, and a sacred heart. Local academics have been struggling to decipher the centuries-old images for some time now, but so far all they’ve come up with is theories. Some believe that the writing may be in old Breton or Basque, while others think that whoever carved it into the rock slab may have been semi-illiterate.

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Online Service Allows You to Hire Someone to Attend a Protest in Your Place

Ever wish you could attend a protest, but couldn’t do so because of location, timing or other constraints? Well, thanks to Wistand, an online platform that allows people to hire proxies to protest on their behalf anytime, anywhere, you can get involved and support the causes you care about.

Before you get too excited about the idea of proxy protesters, you should know that Wistand is currently only available in France, a country that has seen weekly “yellow vests” protests for nearly six months now. But while the idea for this online service may have been inspired by the Yellow Vests anti-government protesters, it is not affiliated with the movement in any way, and can be used for any type of protests. All you have to do is go on the Wistand website, start a “cause” or find one that you care about, and then donate a set fee that will go toward funding a “messenger”, a person to attend that protest on your behalf.

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Wind Turbines and Solar Panels Suspected of Killing Hundreds of Cows in France

In recent years, cattle farmers in France’s Brittany region have lost hundreds of cows to deaths that veterinarians simply cannot explain. After running various tests on their land, some now claim that the solar panels and wind turbines in the area are releasing too much electricity into the ground, which is slowly killing their animals.

Although mysterious cattle deaths have been reported in various parts of Brittany, the situation is particularly dire in Cote-d’Amour, where several farmers have sustained hundreds of losses in mysterious conditions. According to local farmer Patrick Le Nechet, his cattle just started losing weight a few years back and many of them ultimately died. The strange thing was that the animals didn’t seem to be suffering from any diseases and the veterinarians couldn’t explain the cause of death. After conducting his own investigation, Le Nechet concluded that the mysterious deaths started occurring around the time that a photovoltaic installation appeared in the area.

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Star Wars-Inspired Lightsaber Dueling Recognized as Competitive Sport in France

In an effort to get the younger generation off the couch and exercising, the French fencing federation recently recognized lightsaber dueling as a competitive sport.

Just like medieval tales like The Three Musketeers once inspired youths to take up classic fencing sports, so too can Star Wars save young people from the clutches of the evil currently plaguing public health – sedentary lifestyle. Or at least that’s how officials from the French fencing federation explain their decision to acknowledge lightsaber dueling as an official sport. They even included some specific rules designed to make battles between Jedi Knights and Sith Lords more visually appealing and get young people interested in taking up the sport.

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French Butchers Request Police Protection from Violent Vegan Activists

Butchers in France have recently asked police to better protect them and their shops against vegan activists who seek to impose their meat-free lifestyle on the entire nation,

In a letter to France’s Interior Minister, Jean-Francois Guihard, president of the French Confederation of Butchery, Butchers and Delicatessens (CFBCT), requested better police protection for the 18,000 professional butchers in the country, many of whom have become the targets of vegan activists. In April, seven butcher shops in Hauts-de-France were sprinkled with fake blood, and a butcher shop and a fish shop had their windows broken and their facades vandalized with the spray-painted inscription “stop to speciesism“.

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Real-Estate Agency Turns Apartment Viewing into Exciting ‘Escape Room’ Game

Evidence Immobilier, a real-estate agency in Montpelier, France, has become the first in the world to revolutionize the apartment viewing experience by turning it into an exciting “Escape Room” game where potential buyers have to look for clues and solve puzzles, while at the same time discovering the layout of the place.

Whether you’re looking to rent or buy a new apartment, the initial viewing is a very important part of the process. However, for most people – youths in particular – it’s just another chore that has to be completed, not something they are overly excited about.  One real-estate agency in France wants to change that, and their first attempt has been attracting a lot of attention from French media. They’ve teamed up with an Escape Room game designer in Montpelier to turn one of their available apartments into an interactive experience for potential buyers.

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Aging Wine on the Bottom of the Sea Could Become a Thing in France

Two years ago, a winemakers’ association in France dropped 120 bottles of red, white and rosé wine at an undisclosed location in the Mediterranean Sea, as part of an experiment to see if sea bed aging yields better results than traditional cellar aging.

Members of “Les vins de Bandol” winemakers association said that they were inspired to stage this sea aging experiment by the discovery of amphorae that had sunk to the bottom of the sea hundreds, even thousands of years ago. But what really intrigued them was the discovery of intact decades-old wine bottles that had been lost at sea during World War 2, the contents of which had an exquisite taste, according to wine experts. In theory, the sea bed, 40 meters underwater, seemed like a great place to age wine, but they needed proof that this unique environment made the wine taste better, so in the summer of 2015, they dropped 120 bottles of their finest wines into the Mediterranean Sea with plans to retrieve them a year later for a taste test.

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French Florist Spends 15 Years Decorating His Shop with 800 Water Cans

Bruno Geyer, a passionate florist from the quaint village of Rougemont Le Chateau , in the Franche-Comté region of France, has been decorating his flower shop with water cans for the last 15 years. He currently has around 800 of them hanging from the walls and roof of his shop, and even covering a nearby hillside.

It’s hard to miss Bruno Geyer’s unique shop when passing through Rougemont Le Chateau. If the colorful flowers and climbing plants outside don’t give it away, the hundreds of hanging water cans definitely will. They are virtually everywhere and make the place look like it came out of an Alice in Wonderland illustrated book. And with new additions being installed every few days, you could say it’s a work in progress.

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French Man Sues Former Employer Because His Job Was So Boring It Made Him Depressed

While most employees complain of being overburdened at work, one Frenchman is suing his former employer for not giving him enough to do. According to Frederic Desnard, his job as a manager at perfume company ‘Interparfums’ had him suffer a “bore out” between the years of 2010 and 2014. He is now seeking €360,000 (approx. $400,000) in compensation and damages.

Desnard told Agence France-Presse that during his stint with the company he was given tasks that had nothing to do with his original responsibilities, leaving him “destroyed” with “serious depression.” He claimed that the lack of stimulation at work even triggered an epileptic fit one time, while he was driving. He was then signed off work for seven months, and the company later used his “prolonged absence” that “disturbed the smooth working” as an excuse to fire him in September 2014.

“I went into depression,” he said. “I was ashamed to be paid to do nothing. The worse part of it was denying this suffering.”

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French Engineer Converts Old Cars into DIY Poor Man’s Teslas

French engineer Marc Areny didn’t let his financial status get in the way of owning a Tesla – he simply built a DIY version for himself.

A resident of Romania since 2011, Marc was driven by the idea of making “an electric car that anyone could afford, not just elites.” So he started off with Romania’s national car, the low-cost 2005 Dacia Logan by Renault, and got rid of all the parts that worked on petrol. Instead, he replaced them with batteries and an electric motor. The result was a reliable and fast vehicle that does the job pretty well, albeit without all of Tesla’s bells and whistles – touchscreens and other gizmos.

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French Baker Sells His Business to Homeless Person for Just 1 Euro

In a heartwarming display of generosity and gratitude, French baker Michel Flamant recently sold his boulangerie to a homeless man for just €1. The man, Jerome Aucant, had previously saved Flamant from suffocating to death inside the bakery, during a fire.

Flamant admits to being a rather “piggish character”, but he’s proven that his heart is in the right place. In fact, long before his brush with death, he would greet Aucant outside his establishment every morning and treat him to a cup of coffee and a croissant. And his kindness eventually paid off on that fateful day in December when he nearly died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

“If Jerome wasn’t around that day, I would have been a goner,” said Flamant, 62, recalling that a defective oven had started leaking carbon monoxide that morning. He was asphyxiating from the odorless fumes when Aucant noticed Flamant staggering around the bakery and immediately called emergency services. It took 12 days in the hospital for Flamant to recover from the ordeal, but he survived.

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Restaurant Owner Bans Bankers after Being Denied Loan

A restaurant owner in Paris is thoroughly miffed with bankers, so much so that he’s banned them from entering his establishment. A sign outside the place reads: “Dogs welcome, bankers banned (unless they pay an entry fee of €70,000).”

Alexandre Callet’s obvious displeasure towards bankers stems from the fact that many of them turned down his request for a loan of €70,000 ($77,273) to open a second restaurant. He said that he felt humiliated because the amount he asked for is “nothing” compared to the €300,000 turnover of his Michelin-ranked restaurant, Les Ecuries de Richelieu. In fact, most of the bankers who turned him down know Callet and have actually dined at his place.

“I believe in reciprocity,” the 30-year-old said. “They have treated me like a dog, so I have denied them access. As soon as I see a banker that I recognise I won’t let them enter my restaurant. This is not just a kebab shop. My restaurant is in the Michelin guide and film stars come in.”

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French Homeless Man Becomes Bestselling Author after Writing Book on Being Homeless

After being homeless for nearly three decades, Jean-Marie Roughol’s life is about to change for the better. The 47-year-old’s memoirs about begging on the streets of Paris has become a national bestseller this holiday season, selling nearly 50,000 copies and earning him cult status.

The 176-page book, titled Je tape la manche: Une vie dans la rue (My Life as a Panhandler: A Life on the Streets), tells Roughol’s story from his rough childhood to winding up on the streets of Paris. He recalls how he was abandoned by his mother and brought up by an alcoholic father, ending up on the streets in his early twenties after losing his job as a waiter.

Roughol started writing the book two years ago, sitting on park benches, making notes in school exercise books. He got help with writing and editing from a long-time friend, former French Minister of Interion, Jean-Louis Debré. The two met many years ago when Roughol offered to look after Debre’s bicycle as he shopped on the Champs-Élysées, a sweet tale that is also included in the book. He compares meeting Debré to winning the lottery.

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Company Wants to Turn the Scent of Missed Loved Ones into a Comforting Perfume

Thanks to a French company, it might soon be possible to store the comforting scent of a loved one forever. They plan to launch their new line of perfumes made from fragrances that people leave on their clothes, in September.

The idea for the perfumes belongs to French insurance agent Katia Apalategui. She came up with it seven years ago, when she was devastated about losing her father. At the time, she wished there was a way she could store his scent in a bottle. Apparently, her mother felt the same way: “I also miss the smell and do not want to wash his pillowcase,” she had told Katia.

Intrigued by the idea of preserving odor, Katia began to investigate if she could actually make it happen. She tried researching but met with little success, until she came across an innovation agency called Seinari, in Normandy. They put her in touch with the department of organic and macromolecular chemistry at the University of Le Havre. Researchers there were able to explore the possibilities of bringing Katia’s idea to life. After much trial and error, they actually developed a technique to extract the odor out of a person’s clothes, and reconstitute it as an alcohol-based perfume in only four days’ time.

human-scent-perfume

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